"World of StarCraft" confounds!

I think MMO as well. People that say "Why would they take subs from WoW?" The issue is a lot of people are lvl 70 and doing content over again. These people will either jump on once a month or gravitate to other MMO's, even if it is to try out the free month. With a 2nd MMO, they naturally drift over to that one instead ofa nother company and Blizzard continues to rake in the money.

I think Blizzard will announce that top secret hush hush Monkey MMO they've been working on.

DevilStick wrote:

I think Blizzard will announce that top secret hush hush Monkey MMO they've been working on.

If it involves poop flinging monkeys vs typewriter monkeys working on Shakespeare.. I might buy it!

karmajay wrote:

I think MMO as well. People that say "Why would they take subs from WoW?" The issue is a lot of people are lvl 70 and doing content over again. These people will either jump on once a month or gravitate to other MMO's, even if it is to try out the free month. With a 2nd MMO, they naturally drift over to that one instead ofa nother company and Blizzard continues to rake in the money.

has it been shown that WoW is losing a significant amount of subs? I'm confused because people were capped at level 60 for a hella lot longer than they were capped at 70 and the sub base continued to grow (now a good chunk of growth was in delay of launch in overseas markets) but theres no indication that their sub base is significantly shrinking.

I know more than a few people in my guild are also playing LOTRO but they still play WoW they haven't canceled their accounts (at least not yet!)

Maybe the "Next-gen MMO" referenced earlier could be a Diablo-based MMO?

Not that I have any evidence to back this up, just a thought.

Farscry wrote:

It's going to be the long, long awaited sequel to the most kick-ass game ever released on the SNES: Blackthorne!

I made this prediction at the lunch table yesterday and my co-workers looked at me like I was crazy.

Good thing I didn't reference Rock n Roll Racing.

Farscry wrote:

It's going to be the long, long awaited sequel to the most kick-ass game ever released on the SNES: Blackthorne!

This would not offend me and I would not hate Blizzard for it.

Well and the fact that anyone who left WoW will imediately return because the release of Black Temple is around the corner. You really think that anyone who has played WoW to 60-70 would turn down a shot at killing Illidan? You are not prepared!

And Blizzard has another ultimate Ace up their sleeve. If 90% of the subs left WoW, over the next month or next year, every single one would come back for a crack at Lich King Arthas.

TheGameguru wrote:

has it been shown that WoW is losing a significant amount of subs? I'm confused because people were capped at level 60 for a hella lot longer than they were capped at 70 and the sub base continued to grow (now a good chunk of growth was in delay of launch in overseas markets) but theres no indication that their sub base is significantly shrinking.

I know more than a few people in my guild are also playing LOTRO but they still play WoW they haven't canceled their accounts (at least not yet!)

But the growing sub base can just be the result of new subscribers far outnumbering the ones canceling their account, even if there is still a significant number of people quitting.

fangblackbone wrote:

Well and the fact that anyone who left WoW will imediately return because the release of Black Temple is around the corner. You really think that anyone who has played WoW to 60-70 would turn down a shot at killing Illidan? You are not prepared!

And Blizzard has another ultimate Ace up their sleeve. If 90% of the subs left WoW, over the next month or next year, every single one would come back for a crack at Lich King Arthas.

yeah like about 2% of the entire WoW population will ever see the inside of the Black Temple

me included.

necroyeti wrote:
Farscry wrote:

It's going to be the long, long awaited sequel to the most kick-ass game ever released on the SNES: Blackthorne!

I made this prediction at the lunch table yesterday and my co-workers looked at me like I was crazy.

Good thing I didn't reference Rock n Roll Racing.

Rock'n'Roll Racing got more multiplayer from a buddy of mine and myself than even Mario Kart did! I LOVED that game!

gg wrote:

stuff

Sure, plenty of people in this forum are constantly trying new games. Do they usually come back to WoW after awhile? Sure, but with a Starcraft MMO, these people may just jump back and forth just resubscribing when updates come out.

Also about the 8.5 million number, isn't that boxes sold and not subscriptions? It would be nice to see a list of subs per month along with cancellations, but I don't think they release that info.

karmajay, i thought that was active subscriptions

karmajay wrote:
gg wrote:

stuff

Sure, plenty of people in this forum are constantly trying new games. Do they usually come back to WoW after awhile? Sure, but with a Starcraft MMO, these people may just jump back and forth just resubscribing when updates come out.

Also about the 8.5 million number, isn't that boxes sold and not subscriptions? It would be nice to see a list of subs per month along with cancellations, but I don't think they release that info.

Mordiceius wrote:

karmajay, i thought that was active subscriptions

It is indeed active subs. To quantify that a little further, that's paid for accounts. If you just bought the box, and are on the free month, you're not included. Same goes for cancellations, even if you still have time left. Trial accounts are also not included.

If you wanted to look at boxes sold for WoW, I'd wager it's probably closer to pushing 12 million or more.

necroyeti wrote:

I made this prediction at the lunch table yesterday and my co-workers looked at me like I was crazy.

Good thing I didn't reference Rock n Roll Racing.

Man I was playing Motorstorm w/ a good buddy of mine who had RNRR when we were kids and the whole damned time we were Female Doggoing about the fact that it would have been so much cooler had they made it into rock n roll racing w/ rockets n sh*t for when that annoying Female Doggo ass Semi ran you off the road...

Animej wrote:

It is indeed active subs. To quantify that a little further, that's paid for accounts. If you just bought the box, and are on the free month, you're not included. Same goes for cancellations, even if you still have time left. Trial accounts are also not included.

If you wanted to look at boxes sold for WoW, I'd wager it's probably closer to pushing 12 million or more.

Aren't the asian accounts sold/billed a lot differently though? I am not sure if all of those subs would include the same box sales.

As for the original topic... I too hope it is a SC MMORPG. I would hate to see it as reskinned WoW but I know even a SC MMORPG that I was only mildly interested in would amount to 10X as much play time as I would put in to any RTS. I admit I am sadly addicted to MMOs period. The most any single player/small multiplayer game has held my attention in years is maybe 40-60 hours. Even a crappy SC mmo would probably get a month of play time out of me (i.e. 30+ days /played).

mven wrote:

Aren't the asian accounts sold/billed a lot differently though? I am not sure if all of those subs would include the same box sales.

Only in that there's no physical box. However, when you're counting box sales for the expansion, you include digital sales figures, so it's no different. They get billed a little cheaper, but that doesn't have any effect on the number or keys they've sold.

TheGameguru wrote:

yeah like about 2% of the entire WoW population will ever see the inside of the Black Temple

me included.

More like 0.02%.. this is the Naxx of Burning Crusade.

Mayfield wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

yeah like about 2% of the entire WoW population will ever see the inside of the Black Temple

me included.

More like 0.02%.. this is the Naxx of Burning Crusade.

Going by what I've seen coming out of the PTRs, this is worse than Naxx was. However, I think that given the amount of time people have been plugging away at endgame content, and that it's being released, I think a lot more people will see Black Temple than Naxxramas.

Shouldn't they have announced something by now? It's the 19th right now in Korea.

Rat Boy wrote:

Shouldn't they have announced something by now? It's the 19th right now in Korea.

It's being announced at a convention later on this morning, KST. Mordiceius did a rough shift, and it should be something like 10pm CDT US that the announcement is actually made.

C'moooon hurry up Blizzard!!!!

AnimeJ wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

Shouldn't they have announced something by now? It's the 19th right now in Korea.

It's being announced at a convention later on this morning, KST. Mordiceius did a rough shift, and it should be something like 10pm CDT US that the announcement is actually made.

Actually later:

The line in front of the Gymnastic Staduim is hundreds deep right now, and will surely lenghten significantly before the opening ceremony taking place at 2 PM local time, which translates to 10 PM PST.

That, plus the fact that I doubt that they'd make the announcement at the very beginning of the show, means that'll be past midnight PDT before we hear anything.

yeah 10pm pst, not cst

Eh, w/e. I'm probably not gonna see anything on it until tomorrow morning anyway

Another update from IGN:

It's roughly two hours until Blizzard's opening ceremony, and we're camped in the front row waiting for the announcement. They've set up several large screens looping Burning Crusade videos while blasting Rammstein's "Du Hast" from giant banks of speakers. A number of pyrotechnic setups line the front of the stage, so this must be an interesting announcement indeed. Or, at least from the front row, a very hot one. Check the pics, we'll be back with more.

That midnight PDT figure might not be too far off.

It's so close! I will be up all night since I work nights anyways and keep this schedule week long. So if anything interesting comes up I'll find it and post it here.

As for people leaving WoW for something else... Development may start now, even if already done in secret for a while, it will be at least a couple of years or more before the game is released. Better graphics, more intense computers and unless they offer even more expansions for WoW constantly the sub will eventually get bored of the fantasy genre and will want something else.

Enter a new wave of Sci-Fi MMORPGs I hope. I'm personally tired of fantasy and Eve Online wasn't what I was looking for neither was SWG nor Anarchy Online. I need something... Good.

I need something... Good.

re-installed Starcraft and man am I hoping its just Starcraft 2 rts. The game is still great, besides some obvious pathing, ui and graphic changes the game at almost 10 years old is still enjoyable. A WoW skin would really break my heart unless they took the time to genuinely separate the two games from each other with drastic gameplay differences.

Then again, I could be wrong. IGN's providing the only contantly-update coverage:

Update 2:02 PM - Announced presentation will begin shortly. Really cheesy guitar riffs playing over the speakers. The staduim seating is really filling up, must be several thousand in attendance so far.

Heh, Blizzard can't even start a presentation on time.

2:13 - Korean press in center of floor seating is yelling and doing the wave.

2:12 PM - Still hasn't started. Some video guy in front of me is actually dancing to the abominable jazz they're pumping in here. Now he's tapping his feet.

2:08 PM - Another horrible song starting. Large video banks behind announcement stage are displaying Blizzard's WWI logo. People with video cameras are running around everywhere. Gah, this music is bad, awful jazz sax.

2:06 PM - Guitar riffs still aggravatingly cheesy. Crowds continuing to fill seating. Ceremony has yet to start.